Jordan Fletcher: Truly a Man of His Convictions

By Elizabeth Fasolino

Jordan Fletcher, Law ‘06, is a man of many convictions. He has worked to ensure responsible environmental development in Uganda, represented Tibetan asylum seekers in their bid to gain refuge in the U.S., and has taken care of monkeys in an animal shelter in Bolivia. He recently received an American India Foundation fellowship that will enable him to work next September in India with an non-governmental organization (NGO) “dedicated to accelerating social and economic change.”

After graduating from Wesleyan in 2000, he worked in San Francisco as a part-time waiter and LSAT instructor so that he could afford to intern at the non-profit Global Exchange, where he helped organize Haiti’s 2000 elections. But soon he felt he needed a vocational jump-start.

“I came to NYU because I thought it would help me develop a sense of my career and enable me to focus on human rights work,” says Fletcher. “I had a sense that my education at NYU would point me in the right direction.”

Fletcher spent the summer after his first year at NYU in Uganda, funded by a Public Interest Law Center grant, working for an environmental NGO called Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment. Feeling pressure to check out other options, he split the summer after his second year between Atlanta-based corporate law firm King & Spalding and the New York State Attorney General’s office.

“Everyone else seemed to be doing the career with a firm thing,” he says. “I just couldn’t see myself happy in that environment.”

He credits NYU’s law clinic programs with helping him clarify his ambitions, getting support especially from professors Gerald Lopez, Meg Satterthwaite, and Smita Narula. Narula, who encouraged Fletcher to apply for the American India Foundation fellowship, is enthusiastic about his potential.

“Jordan’s energy and passion for what he believes in is matched by his attention to detail and diligence in making the most effective arguments to tackle complicated and challenging human rights issues,” says Narula. “His curiosity and critical thinking raise the bar in classroom conversations, which is a real a gift to any teacher.”

“He’s fantastic,” says Satterthwaite. “In his law clinic work Jordan took on a complex project for [an initiative called] the Right to Health in Haiti. He composed a brilliant brief and presented it to the Inter-American Commission. He’s definitely one of the most creative legal thinkers of the students I’ve worked with, and he’s organized.”

Fletcher won’t know exactly what sort of work he will be doing in India until June—it could be anything from hands-on work to policy research—but he knows that he’s headed in the right direction.

“I’m done with that ‘I have no idea what I’m doing’ phase,” says Fletcher. “Now I’m going to work doing the things I dreamed about when I came to NYU.”